[extropy-chat] FWD [forteana] Re: Are dwarfsbetterforlongduration spaceflight?]

[spike]

Eugen Leitl:
...
> 
> You're not sending much ahead to Mars, are you?

NOOOOO that's right, you are correct!  

Now I know why we kept talking past each other.  I am 
looking at the absolute minimal Mars mission,
where we have a few thousand kilogram manufacturing 
facility, very small, a bulldozer the size of an end 
table, a toy really.  A very expensive sophisticated 
toy, but a small thing.  The stuff it builds is small
by the human scale.  It is sent ahead, carried by one
heavy lifter, Delta class.  Then later the human is 
carried to Mars orbit with one heavy lifter.  The whole 
minimal mission is accomplished with two heavies.  We can
afford that.

This is the classic weights engineer approach to 
something like this: we intuitively look for the
lightest and cheapest arrangement that will do
the job.

On another subject you wrote:

> I was dumping straight from /dev/ass...

{8^D  Gene this comment made me laugh my /dev/ass off.

{8^D

spike